FAULT: are they shiny, mechanical and electronic?

GB: Some of them. I think that’s good though, can’t be a luddite as I say. Kids don’t want to have nice wholesome wooden toys, they want a Hot-Wheels car that does a double spin and then flies off over a mechanical gorilla. I’d rather have that as a kid then a really beautifully painted wooden ark, though we sell those too.

 

 

Photograph by Caspar Newbolt at the Union Hall, Brooklyn.

 

FAULT: how much devotion do you bestow the virtuoso that is past his prime?

GB: It’s not really about the stage of life so much as the quality of work, lots of artists continue to produce great work into their old age and some only start making great work when they’re old. Though generally speaking, having devotion to an artist who previously had created something that you appreciated, that’s a good thing. People go through less successful phases, but sometimes they pick it up again. I never liked Johnny Cash much, I was quite indifferent to most of the early recordings, but I think the recordings he did with Rick Rubin at the very end are some of the best recordings that anyone has ever done, and though I didn’t have much of a devotion for his work beforehand, it was at that point I really found myself devoted.

  

FAULT: throughout your career, how conscious have you been of the musical climate of contemporaries and peers?

GB: I made my record nearly two years ago now, but due to complications with the label it’s not yet been released. Whatever is current during the process of recording will already be past by the time the album gets released. In this case I was very much in my own world at the beginning of the project, and only as it progressed did I become increasingly aware of what else was happening, and there’s lots of good stuff currently, particularly in electronic music. I really like Clams Casino. It may be super trendy but I think it’s superb.

  

FAULT: it also seems that artists overtly trying to ride the wave and engage more directly with the current have proved to be more transient.

GB: I guess that’s the problem. To draw influence from contemporaries is certainly a fine thing, nothing wrong with dating yourself within a context, because that’s the truth, and being truthful is most important. But equally you’ve got to make your own wave rather than riding someone else’s.

To be retrogressive, to write and record in a manner of a time gone by, is ludicrous and absurd. To be of your time shows that you’re acknowledging the world, so while I try to always maintain my own voice, I’m equally influenced by the surroundings I live in.

  

FAULT: If you don’t mind me asking, why was the album release pushed back from October 2012?

GB: Because I don’t have any fans.

 

 

 

FAULT: you seem to have hit upon two things that are seemingly contrary: on the one hand, we begin with Bowie creating a persona or mystique which is outside of reality, yet you say that honesty is vitally important to the artistic pursuit.

GB: But that’s not my contradiction, that’s your interview. I guess maybe I’m trying to say that there’s no right or wrong way of approaching art. It’s interesting for me to be honest, and it’s interesting for me to be deceptive. But most of all, it’s interesting to use honesty as a deception. It also works vice versa, to lie as a means of telling the truth is the glorious coup. If you can convince people that you’re deceiving them when really you’re being honest, all the more better I think.

  

FAULT: Earlier I came across an interview with Francis Bacon, conducted by art critic David Sylvester back in the sixties, and thought I’d direct one of the questions to you: would you agree that there somehow a distinct presence or threat of violence in your work?

GB: [bewildered pause] I would agree that there’s a distinct presence of violence in Francis Bacon’s work… and also in some of my work. Yes. Yes I would. Not in all of it. But love is violence and my songs are love songs. When I perform on stage it’s a confrontational situation for me, I find it kind of daunting and my response can be violent.

  

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